A Bride
This fair shape is your bride-to-be?
This white vision you claim as yours?
This is the household deity
You are to worship while life endures?
Surely a splendor so strange and new
Had in another sphere its birth; —
How could a mortal man like you
Lure her down to this dull, cold earth?
Lovely? yes, — there is not a flaw
Her perfect fairness to cloud or spoil; —
Nature for once has broken her law,
And made a beauty without its foil.
Could threads of gold be as finely spun,
They might shine like her drifting hair; —
And such a brow! — there was never one
Half so queenly or half so fair.
Eyes which fill us with tender pain,
So bewitching their mellow shine, —
Winning all gazers again and again
To bow in vain at their lovely shrine.
Never were human lips before
So rarely moulded in any land;
Never a shoulder such dimples bore, —
And look at her dainty, peach-bloom hand!
Flushing with young life, pure and rich,
Warm and pink to the pearly nails; —
The listening Venus in yonder niche
Tries to rival their charm, — but fails.
Yet how pulseless and still she stands!
Never a blush is on her cheek,
Never a tremble along her hands!
Say, can she love, or weep, or speak?
Was she spoken at once to life,
Every dimple, and tint, and curl?
Always a possible queen or wife,
Never a babe, or a bashful girl?
Faultless all, in her beauteous prime, —
Stately, regal, if so you will, —
Yet were she mine, I could wish, some time,
Her lip to quiver, her hand to thrill.
She is perfection, and nothing less, —
Beauty's perfection, and nothing more;
Looking on her, I only guess
What your future may have in store.
Garlands of flowers from lands abroad,
Marvels of artificial bloom, —
Blossoms which never were in the bud,
Flaunt their falsehood in yonder room.
Petals of muslin and silken woof,
Leaves of paper and stems of wire, —
Flowers more brilliant and winter-proof
Than ever sprung from our earthly mire.
Won by their flattering falsity,
(Mark the warning my words disclose,)
I found, this morning, a famished bee
Dead, in the heart of a cambric rose!
This white vision you claim as yours?
This is the household deity
You are to worship while life endures?
Surely a splendor so strange and new
Had in another sphere its birth; —
How could a mortal man like you
Lure her down to this dull, cold earth?
Lovely? yes, — there is not a flaw
Her perfect fairness to cloud or spoil; —
Nature for once has broken her law,
And made a beauty without its foil.
Could threads of gold be as finely spun,
They might shine like her drifting hair; —
And such a brow! — there was never one
Half so queenly or half so fair.
Eyes which fill us with tender pain,
So bewitching their mellow shine, —
Winning all gazers again and again
To bow in vain at their lovely shrine.
Never were human lips before
So rarely moulded in any land;
Never a shoulder such dimples bore, —
And look at her dainty, peach-bloom hand!
Flushing with young life, pure and rich,
Warm and pink to the pearly nails; —
The listening Venus in yonder niche
Tries to rival their charm, — but fails.
Yet how pulseless and still she stands!
Never a blush is on her cheek,
Never a tremble along her hands!
Say, can she love, or weep, or speak?
Was she spoken at once to life,
Every dimple, and tint, and curl?
Always a possible queen or wife,
Never a babe, or a bashful girl?
Faultless all, in her beauteous prime, —
Stately, regal, if so you will, —
Yet were she mine, I could wish, some time,
Her lip to quiver, her hand to thrill.
She is perfection, and nothing less, —
Beauty's perfection, and nothing more;
Looking on her, I only guess
What your future may have in store.
Garlands of flowers from lands abroad,
Marvels of artificial bloom, —
Blossoms which never were in the bud,
Flaunt their falsehood in yonder room.
Petals of muslin and silken woof,
Leaves of paper and stems of wire, —
Flowers more brilliant and winter-proof
Than ever sprung from our earthly mire.
Won by their flattering falsity,
(Mark the warning my words disclose,)
I found, this morning, a famished bee
Dead, in the heart of a cambric rose!
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